


Smother

by Reborn_Rekall



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Conflict, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Depression, F/M, Internal Conflict, Mental Anguish, Mental Health Issues, Pain, Protective Dean Winchester, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, reader is having a hard time, twisted sense of self, twisted view of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:54:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28867347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reborn_Rekall/pseuds/Reborn_Rekall
Summary: Meeting the Winchesters hadn’t erased her past, and sometimes, pain wins with pain.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	Smother

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while listening to the Smother- Daughter, so I recommend to get into the mood.

**10:45PM.**

Time.

Sometimes time is just a concept meant to wear you down, to torture because you can feel how things get worse at every. passing. second.

Y/N sat at the kitchen table, a black hunting knife to her right but that wasn’t where her focus lied. She stared into the void, into nothing but the space in front of her. She was drowning in her thoughts, with sense of time lost though there was a very loud clock hanging on the wall. God knows how long she’s been like this. Sometimes, she could force her hearing to register the ticks but the current that was her restlessness quickly carried the sound away, leaving agonizing pulses in her ears.

_Fuck, how far gone do you have to be to feel like your own heartbeat is something dreadful?_

Y/N felt tempted to face her blade, ceiling lights hitting metal and reflecting in the corner of her eyes, but she forced them to remain focused on the void. Anxiety ran faster than she could catch up, multiple nervous ticks happening all at once- left fingers tapping at the counter, right leg bouncing, teeth biting the nails off the other hand and occasionally digging into the sides of her mouth until a hint of blood hit her tongue. But all those nervous gestures were better than the insistent tingling itch running through her body, in any place where her heartbeat could be felt.

She always found herself here, fighting her pain as the presence of anything slightly sharp grew stronger. Trying to find a quick solution to the incessant itch, she looked at the liquor cabinet. Would alcohol sooth without leaving a gaping hole this time? Nope, not today, too many risks there.

She redirected her gaze to a glass coffee pot that was half full. Would caffeine give her enough life to compensate for an eternity of walking between the lines of stillness and restlessness? I mean, how much caffeine can you drink before throwing yourself at the edge of an anxiety attack? Or get some serious arrhythmia?

Would it at least grant the type of alive she’d craved but barely remembered how it felt? Was alive still even possible? Was it an ambitious dream from a lifetime ago? An illusion? Was this all that’s left? The clench of her trachea and chest wrapping tightly around an unresting emptiness, a void that grew from her and flew in and out with every breath she took? No drinking coffee tonight either, not when she still had this anxiety to deal with.

Y/N tried searching for something else and ended up spotting a kitchen knife on a counter afar. Realizing her gaze lingered a little too much on it, she forced herself out the place. She couldn’t be weak, not again, not now. She couldn’t fall back to old habits now that she had people who relied on her. She had to distract herself, get away.

 _Maybe sweating it out will do the trick._ She thought

She quickly marched towards the Training Room before she could be taunted furthermore, her steps steadying in an attempt to fool herself into thinking she had more control than she actually did.

Passing Dean’s room on her way, Y/N noticed the door was ajar and walked a couple of steps back to dare take a peek. The precious man-child inside laughed at yet another rewatched episode of Scooby-Doo. Well, it’s easy to see him as a man-child when you’re not at the receiving end of his barrel. The faint light of his laptop shined at his relaxed features, and Y/N almost left him to his much-deserved resting. But tonight loneliness crept in and brought threats with it, so she let selfishness win.

“Hey, De.” Greeting as she pushed the door farther. “I’m gonna train for a bit, you wanna join in?”

“Train? Y/N, it’s almost 11.” Whining without taking his eyes off the screen, before he pulled back his blanket with one arm and invited. “Come here and let’s watch something.”

Y/N thought about it for a brief second, Dean’s presence always did seem to help even if temporarily. But she knew that her concentration was compromised and whatever Dean put on was only going to plunge her deeper into her thoughts.

“Nah, I’m good.” She replied, closing his door before any reaction could come through and heading to her original destination.

Entering the Training Room, she consciously avoided looking at every weapon inside, focusing solely on her favorite punching bag. She wasted a shit ton of money on it for its alleged durability, well, she wasted _someone’s_ money. Thank you Mr. Feng or whoever the fuck owned the credit card at the time. Either way, the bag lived up to its reputation and that was certainly a win, Y/N was getting tired of putting her hands through cheap material that wore down easily. She started her usual routine, knuckles striking leather as she tried to fight out the emptiness in her chest.

**12:03AM**

Reality.

Reality is hard to face and perhaps the hardest part of it is recognizing that sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you try- you simply can’t win. Karma, law of attraction, whatever you wanna call it; sometimes it fails. Y/N knows that, she’s seen enough good people go through painful lives and unbearable deaths. Karma itself can break its own fundamental rules to make things more interesting, right?

And now Y/N had to deal with the fact that even though she fought, it didn’t work. Nothing fucking worked. She tried switching up, making the workout more intense, hitting harder, and punching her emotions into the bag but that weakening itch wouldn’t go away. She was losing the sliver of control she had, hyperventilating and shaking and all types of messed up. Her outsides were gradually becoming a reflection of how turmoiled her insides were. She needed to get out, take in fresh air and get back in shape before someone sees her like this.

This time, she ran through the corridors of the bunker. She decided that when she passed through the entry of the kitchen she wouldn’t even look inside and resist the pull that was the knife sitting on the table, but once she finally passed through the doors, a voice called at her.

“Hey Y/N/N!”

Dean. Of course it had to be fucking Dean. Tugging at as much self-control as she could, Y/N walked back into Dean’s line of vision without entering the kitchen. He was making his habitual hot chocolate, just being the domestic man he’d never confess to be.

“Where ya going?”

“For a run.”

“What?” He frowned.“ It’s a little late, even for you guys. Is Sammy already outside?”

“Sam’s not coming with me.”

Any other person wouldn’t have seen the brief squinting of Dean’s eyes, the small indications of his intuition telling him something wasn’t right. Dean measured his next words carefully, he could sense an edge to Y/N’s voice and he knew that at times like these he had act chill.

“You sure you want to go out? It’s kinda cold, and I was thinking about us watching a movie.” He offered with a tempting smile. “You know, just you and me? I can make something to eat?”

Dean saw her seriously contemplate the idea but heard her decision after noticing the tightening of her fists.

“Nope. Need to sweat a little more, I had too much coffee earlier.” Voice slightly wavering as her self control slipped momentarily.

That definitely didn’t go unnoticed by the caring man in front of her. Calculating his next move, Dean’s worry grew and he felt as if he should give her a reason to stay. But he could never tell Y/N what to do, she’d rip his throat out if he tried. Too god damn prideful, too much like himself.

“What’s your knife doing on the table? You never go anywhere without it.” He asked, picking at the things that were out of place.

“I was sharpening it, must’ve forgotten it there.” The lie flowing smoothly through her lips. _Too smoothly._

“Why didn’t you sharpen it at the shooting range? That’s where the equipment is and it’s right next to the training room. Where you came from.” Screw chill, he could read her like a book, and something always definitely wrong. But he knew a mistake was made when her expression changed completely. Eyes hardening, he saw a smile spread on her face. She slowly walked into the kitchen, slipping the blade from the table into its usual place in her ankle sheath before ending the conversation.

“Maybe, it’s because I do whatever the fuck I want.”

She always did this. Sam often told Dean he got a taste of his own medicine once he met Y/N because she didn’t just push people away, she made them scared, downright terrified to doubt her whenever she said she was okay. Whenever someone cared too much and poked at her vulnerabilities, she would smile and put on that look in her eyes that screamed murder. _Stay away_. He wished that wasn’t the last look he saw on her face before she turned her back and made her way up the bunker exit.

The door opened, cold winter air burning more than it soothed, the way she spoke to the person who did nothing but help started weighing heavily on her shoulders. But she had to get out, get away. Run even if her lungs couldn’t afford to, try even if her limbs were exhausted, resist even if the blade attached to her ankle made her _want_ to crumble.

As the moon shined, loneliness crept in and brought threats with it, but all of those threats were just extensions of herself.

**1:20AM**

Accountability.

Y/N always held herself accountable for everything. Even if she wasn’t taking action to fix things, she never threw the blame on something else. Never on people or circumstances, luck or destiny. It was always on her whether she knew better or not, whether she could change it or not. If she looked at a situation and recognized the smallest trace of guilt on her part, she would hold herself accountable even if that guilt ate her alive. She couldn’t help it. Perhaps it was the lifetime of not knowing who to blame, of her parents refusing to take any accountability, of her family always blaming the mistakes of younger siblings and cousins on her. All she knew was accountability and she reveled in it because it was all she had. Because being guilty was better than being a victim.

But now, guilt made her want to die. She felt guilty for not being better, for putting up walls so high that she didn’t know how to tear them down, for hurting the people she loved, for the people she couldn’t save, for being unappreciative of the blood that pumped in her veins when she’d seen the lives of so many pour out on harsh floors and dark basements.

When she began running, she started at the gravel road and at one point strayed away into a wilderness she hadn’t really noticed until headlights brought her out of the clouds of her thoughts. But the clouds didn’t stay away for long and as Y/N walked deeper into the cedar forest, she tried to keep them away and think of things that anchored her.

She tried thinking of Sam. She thought of how he would complain about the placing of the books before reorganizing the entire library for the seventh time. How he always had the perfect book to recommend or quote to give out for whatever mood she was in, he just came to know her literary taste so well. She thought of how she and Sam would race each other like kids during their jogging sessions, how they would trail the parks nearby to make sure any careless teenagers there weren’t in any trouble. She thought of how Sam would go on a rant when he and Dean made dinner together because Dean always put the spices in the wrong cabinet, on nights like those the food smelled like competition and playful banter. She thought of how Sam needed someone who didn’t judge him for his past mistakes, who didn’t see him as a monster or was scared of his potential to become one. Again.

Y/N thought about Cas. How he always wanted to hear her opinion in an argument, making room for her voice when everyone else wouldn’t, even though she didn’t need someone to _let_ her speak. How considerate he was to help with period cramps, even if her ego told him it wasn’t that bad. How much he cared about people’s comfort and justice. She thought of the time he asked how to properly talk to women because he guessed advice from an actual woman was better than what Dean had taught him. _Oh_ , and how confused he looked when she told him to drink ‘respect women juice’ and he naively asked where he could get such a thing. She thought of the time he asked if she could tell him how to improve his pizzaman moves… whatever that meant. But especially, she thought of how he needed someone to have faith in him not just as a friend but as an angel too. How he missed that piece of who he was and the feeling of being completely trusted. How much he sacrificed and how much he deserved to have someone willing to do the same and more for him.

She thought of Dean. How the bastard tried so damn hard to get her to open up and how much it hurt to shut him out. How he insisted on doing most of the chores around the place since Y/N was the only woman around and he didn’t want her to feel like the bunker maid. She thought of how cute he was during movie nights, always bringing her as many blankets and pillows as he could fit in his bed. How special their inside jokes felt, and how cute it was that Dean seemed jealous whenever she and Sam had an inside joke of their own. She thought of how he needed someone who didn’t see him as a predator in the night, who saw more than the hunter, more than the man who enjoyed enough of his sins to burn the righteousness out of him. He needed someone that looked at him and only saw Dean.

Y/N grasped onto those memories with all her strength, playing them in her mind over and over again. But somehow, even though those were her only reasons to stay alive, they weren’t enough. Nothing felt enough, no matter how valuable it was. She was plagued with ideas of how if she was gone, they’d survive. Probably even find a decent replacement, a better replacement. Sometimes your paper plane rips and life soothes you with your first real flight.

It didn’t matter how many reasons Y/N gave herself - she was the problem, always had been. Always too selfish and self-absorbed, too broken and scarred. Too much of a disappointment, always the best at being the worst. Too much of a suffocator, to others and to her own self. Always walking the line between using pain to feel alive and wanting to die so she would never feel empty again. But she wouldn’t die, not today. Accountability meant responsibility and she couldn’t run from hers. She was ready for the pain though.

**2AM**

Itch

After you first start cutting, you develop this want for it that comes out as an itch. An addictive itch begging you to do it again and again and again and again. It itches on every patch of skin you know is alive, and you feel like the only way to scratch that itch is through pain. Sometimes it’s not the touch of a blade, sometimes it’s skipping meals and starving yourself, sometimes it’s getting your hand a little too close to the fire, sometimes it’s putting yourself in dangerous situations and getting lost in the woods at 2AM.

There’s a lot of shame to it, and the biggest one is pleasure. Pain becomes pleasurebut the desire, the addiction, it doesn’t make the act any less gruesome. It’s pleasure but a type that still makes you want to scream your brains out while flesh is opening, the type that makes your body tense and wishing you could be better than this. The ghost of pleasure doesn’t lessen the tears that run down your face when the time comes for you to look yourself in the mirror and face the reality of what you’ve become.

Y/N’s heavy feet carried her to the edge of a stream, to sit at a rock as her feet dipped into the steady current. She couldn’t find the strength to fight that itch anymore, so she’d give in just this _one_ time. Except she’s had a lifetime of 'last times’.

Blade exits sheath, sharp edges reflecting in her vision once more with the light of the moon. Ironic how many times this knife had saved her during hunts, and how cutting herself started to feel like saving herself. Y/N knew there wasn’t any rest for the wicked, she just didn’t expect wickedness to poison her mind. She looked at her bare arms. She couldn’t go back to the bunker and risk being seen with a bleeding wrist, she had to do this somewhere else. So she pulled up her shirt a bit, enough to expose the old scars that littered her ribs. The tip of the knife touches skin, no pressure yet.

“Here goes nothing.” She whispers to the moon.

Force is exerted on the handle, and flesh burns with its opening. Y/N let’s out a whimper as the blade traces rib to stomach, mentally scolding herself so sounding so pathetic when the cut wasn’t deep enough to be critical. Once the blade stops shining, blood coating the edges, Y/N hears a scream.

“NO!”

Dean is in her face in seconds, hand grasping at the black knife and throwing it somewhere far into the deep stream. Y/N is shell shocked, caught in a moment of vulnerability.

“How did you find me? How-”

“Tell me you weren’t going to do it!” He grabbed Y/N by the shoulders, his desperation masked by harsh frustration.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sor-” She murmured weakly.

“I’ve been calling you for hours! Just tell me you weren’t gonna fucking kill yourself Y/N! Tell me you weren’t gonna do this!”

“Please, just give me some space-”

“How long? How long have you been doing this?” His hands pushed her shirt up in an attempt to see scars he only caught a glimpse of, the action immediately causing Y/N to shove him away.

“Stay the fuck away from me!” Her arms coming around her stomach in a defensive stance. This time, it was Dean’s turn to apologize but Y/N cuts him before he can get the words out.

“Don’t you ever fucking touch me like that again. Ever.” She warned, tears finally welling up. “I wasn’t going to kill myself. You don’t understand I just-”

Dean saw the internal struggle, how much it hurt for her to open up both to him and herself. But he has to know, so he pressed.

“You just what?”

“I just want to feel alive without feeling like I want to die!”

Silence stretches out after the shouted confession is echoed into the night, nothing but tears and shadows cast by the cedar trees. Dean inhaled shakily before finally speaking.

“Let me fix this. Please Y/N, let me fix this, okay? I don’t know where I went wrong or what I need to do to make it right but please.”

“This isn’t about you, Dean.”

“Then whatever it is your fighting, let me help.” He pleaded, walking closer to her. “Just, let’s go back to the bunker and have a family dinner and deal with this together. Please Y/N, don’t push me away. Don’t leave me.”

Crying silently, she let him hug her, unable to speak any further as he kept pleading at her

“Don’t you ever leave me. Promise me.” His grip tightening. “Promise me, Y/N.”

“I promise.” And she means it, finally hugging him back.

“Let’s go home.”


End file.
